A TASTY MESS: Delicious Jumbo Cupcakes!

Pastel Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef, browned
1 10oz. bag frozen, or 15 oz. canned green peas
2-3 cups prepared mashed potatoes
4 Tbsp. Bisto gravy pearls
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1 1/2 tsp. dried onions (fresh would be nice too.)

What?! That's not how you make cupcakes?

April Fools!

(And yes, I know we are late. There was a great deal of sickness on April 1st, so this one showed up a few days later.)

This recipe is really an adaptation of Mince & Totties.

Mince & Totties is similar to Shepherd's Pie. It's Scottish for Meat Gravy (Mince) and Mashed Potatoes (Totties). Served traditionally with a side of peas.

Mashed Potatoes, Bisto, Sweet Peas, Worcestershire Sauce

I haven't used instant potatoes in ten years. For this, I thought it would be easier. I needed a really creamy batch so that I could easily pipe them onto the meat mixture. Just follow the directions on the box, adding food coloring to the water.

It worked beautifully for that, but was kind of gummy. Next time I'll just do a really good job of pureeing my homemade mashed potatoes.

The only recipe you really need is for the Mince:

1 lb. ground beef, browned
4 Tbsp. Bisto (find it in the British food section of your grocery store, or at Cost Plus - In a pinch, use a packet of brown gravy mix.)
1 1/2 tsp. dried onions
2/3 cup water.

Drain browned beef. Return to pot. Add onions and bisto. Mix well to coat the meat. Add water and Worcestershire. Stir until heated through. The Bisto will thicken quickly. Add more for a thicker gravy.

Minced Meat Gravy

Now to assemble the cupcakes as we ate them:

Start with Jumbo cupcake liner, in a jumbo cupcake pan. (In hindsight, a silicone liner would have been awesome because the paper fell apart under the wet peas.)

Layar peas first, then meat in each cup.

Then pipe on the potatoes to look like frosting.

I made it easier, because the potatoes were very hot, by putting the Ziploc bag into a storage container for filling.